1. Field of the Inventions
The present invention relates to virtual computer-generated environments in which participants are represented by computer-generated avatars, and in particular for environments that simulate an actual 3-D environment and allow for simultaneous participation of multiple players.
2. Description of Related Art
Computer generated virtual environments are increasingly popular diversion for play by multiple remote users within a networked system. The creation of virtualized worlds, three dimensional or otherwise, is well known. Simple text based adventures such as “Zork”, early “first person shooter” games such as “Doom”, and ultimately numerous highly complex environments such as “Halo” are well known in the art. Various on-line environments are known in which a 3-D physical world (actual or fantasy) is simulated. Environments of this type are sometimes referred to as “virtual reality” or “virtual reality universe” (VRU) environments. In known VRU environments, an actual or fantasy universe is simulated within a computer memory. Multiple players may participate in the environment through a computer network, such as a local area network or a wide area network. Each player selects an “avatar,” which may comprise a three-dimensional figure of a man, woman, or other being, to represent them in the VRU environment. Players send inputs to a VRU engine to move their avatars around the VRU environment, and are able to cause interaction between their avatars and objects in the VRU. For example, a player's avatar may interact with an automated entity or person, simulated static objects, or avatars operated by other players. A common style of play is free play in an unstructured environment. In an unstructured environment, there are no game rules or objectives, and players interact with each other via their respective avatars, in a relatively unrestricted, free-play fashion.
It is desirable to provide interesting content within the VRU environment to attract and engage participants, thereby increasing participation and membership in the environments. Unstructured VRU environments accomplish this by facilitating a free play environment in which interest is created by the interaction of independent users. This simulates real-life interaction through voice and text messaging and avatar behavior, and may be considered a core feature of VRU environments. Such non-scripted interaction may be considered a form of user-supplied content that may be of interest to others in the environment. Additionally, predetermined content may be provided in the environment for passive interaction. Likewise, robot avatars that are programmed to interact with human-operated clients in a automatic fashion may be provided. While all of these methods are useful for their intended purposes, unstructured VRU environments suffer from the drawback of being highly dependent on temporal, client-controlled input that may determine essential characteristic of a VRU environment at various periods of time.
In other words, a user's experience in the VRU environment may be highly dependent on factors beyond the control of the VRU host or the user, namely, the social skills, attitude, and mood of other users at particular times. In addition, some users may lack the social or computing skills needed to generate an interesting time for themselves, yet are still interested in observing or learning about the interactions of others.
It is desirable, therefore, to resolve these problems and to provide user-supplied content within a VRU space that is less dependent on time and better organized for use by users within the VRU space.